Diane Munro

Non-Resident Fellow

Diane Munro is a non-resident fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington where she specializes in international oil markets and geopolitical issues driving OPEC and Gulf Cooperation Council energy policies. Formerly, she served with the Paris-based International Energy Agency, where her work centered on developing global oil market forecasts, policy analysis of IEA and OPEC member countries, and energy security strategies such as IEA simulations and war-gaming exercises among member countries in the event of major oil supply disruptions. Munro has written on energy issues for more than 30 years, with her work published by Bloomberg, Middle East Economic Survey, Reuters, Al-Hayat, Energy Compass, and Petroleum Intelligence Weekly. In addition, she has worked as a consultant for a wide range of companies including Wood Mackenzie, BP, and Arthur Andersen. Previously, she was president and editor-in-chief of The Oil Daily Co, now known as Energy Intelligence Group.

President Donald J. Trump’s decision to exit the Iran nuclear deal and reimpose sanctions has injected a much higher level of volatility into oil markets, with prices scaling new heights to levels not seen since 2014.

Bahrain made its largest-ever oil find off the kingdom’s western coast, with Khalij al-Bahrain Basin estimated to contain at least 80 billion barrels of tight oil and 10-20 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of natural gas, officials announced on April 1.

OPEC may need to maintain crude oil supplies at current lower levels for longer than planned, as surging U.S. shale oil dominates global oil markets for the next several years, according to a new report from the IEA.

Global oil prices opened the new year on a high note, reaching three-year peaks by mid-January, spurred on by robust winter demand growth, supply outages, and the strong commitment by OPEC and its non-OPEC partners to maintain production curbs through the end of 2018.

OPEC and its non-OPEC allies reached an agreement at their November 30 meeting in Vienna to formally extend production cuts to the end of 2018 with the deal subject to review at a biannual meeting in June.

OPEC ministers are set to mark the one-year anniversary of their historic production pact with their non-OPEC counterparts on November 30 with oil prices up by a sharp $10 per barrel (/bbl) on average so far this year and oil revenue higher by a significant 25 percent, far outpacing the relatively modest supply cuts by producer countries.